In the production of packaged food products, a typical arrangement comprises a food product patty former, such as a FORMAX F26 or MAXUM700 food patty forming machine, a sheet interleaving device and a take away conveyor to produce a stream of stacked patties with interleaved paper separators. Such an arrangement is disclosed for example in U.S. Pat. No. 3,952,478 or U.S. Ser. No. 60/540,022, filed Jan. 27, 2004, both herein incorporated by reference. The stacks are transported away from the patty-forming machine and manually placed into packaging.
The packaging of the stacked patties is labor-intensive.
The present inventors have recognized the advantage of reducing the reliance on manual labor in packaging food products and particularly stacked food products. The present inventors have recognized that it would be advantageous to automate the packaging of food products, particularly stacked food products.